In the pharmaceutical industry, a capsule filling machine is known comprising a unit for feeding capsules onto a line for filling the capsules with said drug.
The feed unit normally comprises a hopper containing the capsules, and which is mounted to rotate continuously at a given angular speed about a respective substantially vertical first axis of rotation, and is fitted with a number of substantially cylindrical feed channels having respective longitudinal second axes substantially parallel to the first axis and for receiving the capsules successively from the hopper.
As the hopper, and therefore the feed channels, rotate about the first axis, the capsules inside the feed channels are subjected to a centrifugal force perpendicular to the first axis and proportional to the square of said angular speed.
Though amply tried and tested, known feed units of the above type have a relatively low output rate, on account of the angular speed of the hopper being limited to a given value, over and above which the centrifugal force prevents the capsules being feed along the relative feed channels, and the number of feed channels also being limited to a given value, over and above which the feed unit becomes relatively complex and expensive.